Category: JSAway

Since the initial release V0.1 of JSAway, I have had some feedback on some issues. Specifically there were issues around JavaScript errors with IE6 and 7. I think I’ve got to the bottom of these for now but did mean a bit of a sitewide change for me – hence the reason it’s taken so long. I’ve also made a few changes to the JSAway file to fix a few things.

The way I had my site configured, using MooTools, SWFObject 1.5 & 2.0 (very bad idea), SlimBox, MediaBox and with the Flash ExternalInterface calls, IE 6 & 7 weren’t happy. I’ve now changed my site to use the latest MooTools (1.2) and SqueezeBox for the lightbox effects on images and SWFs.

optional registering of JavaScript call back functions – this is to remove any unnecessary AS to JS calls where the function is not implemented.

other minor fixes

The second download is now going to be a more progressive ‘trunk’ style download where the latest changes are implemented but they are not necessarily fully documented or thoroughly tested.

JSAway V0.1.1a includes

fixes to get the Collada loader working. MD2, Collada and Ase should be working better now.

There is a new Model Loader Example to demonstrate the loading of each model type – this will be enhanced to show all model loading mechanisms when I get the models and the code in place (if it doesn’t do it already).

Don’t forget, the Forums may hold the answer to some of your questions.

Site changes

As for the site changes, I’ve added some social bookmarking to each of the blog pages to help spread the word – give them a click if you like. I’ve tried (yet again) to fix the commenting problems – even though the math security calculation works i had screwed up the session management which broke it again – hopefully that is now fixed. So now the site uses MooTools (1.2) and SqueezeBox – gone are the others as there seemed to be too many conflicts that stopped things working.

JSAway is a spin-off of Away3D which provides web developers access to the high performance graphics capabilities of the engine, through JavaScript. Currently based of V2.0, JSAway exposes implementations of the API and provides other supporting functionality to allow complex scenes to be created and animated providing full interaction between the web page and the 3D scene.

JSAway is still in early development but from the examples, you can easily see it’s potential in opening up 3D on the web to different community. All the examples use the same single SWF file, while the underlying web page’s JavaScript code controls what is going on.

Some of the features of JSAway.

JavaScript only – no ActionScript knowledge required.

simple command reference exposes huge range of features

all API basic primitives can be used

basic 3D event handling

filter based effects on objects

simple custom tweening operations

simple bitmap manipulation, get/set pixel and draw bitmap

getting/setting of object properties

material handling

content (materials and 3D models) loading – bitmaps, sketchup, dae…..

powerful features including lathe, extrudes, elevations, etc are supported